What is it?

It’s a series of 12 photographs by Bradley Photography shown consecutively as a slide show with original music by Cheryl Camm, composed in response to and inspired by the pictures.

How can I see and hear it?

Initially it was on display between 16^th and 23^rd October 2014 at Digitalab’s F STOP GALLERY on Stepney Bank in Newcastle. http://www.fstopgallery.co.uk/index.html But now you can view the video here at the bottom of this page!

The photos.

The project started with Jonathan’s photos. They are of views of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and were captured as part of his People : Space concept. Jonathan says: “With this work, as with my other People : Space work, I wanted to achieve a photograph collection that evoked moods and feelings and explores how these emotions evolve and change with the various scapes in the city….Consider for a moment, that we are all surrounded by some type of space and that we are also a function of that space. Our surroundings affect us in many ways, at a very low level, both emotionally and physically. Yet these surroundings that make up a vital part of our lives, a fabric of our existence, are often overlooked and taken for granted. People : Space photography encourages the viewer to examine different types of space that directly depict or indirectly suggest humanity. How do spaces make you feel? ” To see more of Jonathan’s People : Space images: http://www.bradley-photography.com/main.htm

The music.

The music is developed from a nursery rhyme “Gannin’ On Wor Feet” which considers different footwear and how it changes the way the wearer moves. As the pictures change from one to the next, the music subtly or dramatically evolves to reflect the people who may sometimes occupy each space. The music could be described as a theme and variations, although the theme itself doesn’t appear as a whole until the last picture of an empty playground where this nursery rhyme has perhaps found its true home.

The musical process.

Step 1 – The photos.

Jonathan took the photos.  Many, many photos, and the final twelve were jointly selected. From the outset, Jonathan was determined this image of South Sandyford (black and white with the stark buildings on the right and the bare trees on the left with the compelling vanishing point drawing the viewer in) should be included. I detected from his passion for this particular photograph that it was at the heart of his ideas for this project. I personally was drawn to the deserted playground, also of South Sandyford, also in black and white, and again with that stark combination of buildings, bare trees, paths leading away from the viewer (even the playground rides are pointing in that same direction). These two images have formed the focus of my thinking on the music to be composed.

Step 2 – The structure.

Initially, the idea was to have all 12 photos on display at once with the music playing generally in the background, but as these images became familiar friends, I felt that each, although expressing the muscular collective characteristics of the collection as a whole, warranted its own individual musical response. Neither Jonathan nor I was happy about the idea of twelve separate pieces of music, so the only way to ensure that the music and images married together completely was to have the images appear consecutively in perfect synchronisation with the music.

After this decision was made, I immediately resolved to use Jonathan’s “favourite” at the beginning and mine at the end, so for the remaining ten…. Essentially we are taken on an excursion from the starker images of hard, bleak landscapes and emptiness to the increasingly decorative, peopled, and somewhat softer city centre views, back to the desolate playground via a couple of ghostly disappearances.

Step 3 – The tune.

Inspired by Jonathan’s concept of People : Space, I imagined the people that may well inhabit the spaces contained in each photo. The compelling vanishing points in each photo set me a-thinking about the way these people would move through the space. Bearing in mind the final playground with the absent children, I composed a nursery rhyme about the footwear they would have and how they would walk. The melody of this nursery rhyme has formed the basis of the music for this project. I have taken each fragment of melody and improvised freely upon it. The melody as a whole does not appear until the final scene.

Step 4 – The chords.

I have, during all of 2014 so far been fascinated by a particular chord (a diminished triad with a perfect 4^th popped on the top) and the close juxtaposition of transpositions of this chord one after the other. This tiny idea has appeared in my arrangement of the Aln Valley Railway Song, and also in my Ave Maria commission for Rock Festival Choir in Alnwick, Northumberland, but it makes an all-encompassing appearance here in this music for “Newcastle View”, starting and finishing the entire piece and permeating throughout. Its inclusion of both major and minor thirds and a major 7^th seem to give it a soft and also austere quality which suits the different moods of the images well.

I noticed once I had completed the music that I seem to have mainly used the chords in parallel motion. I’m happy with this unconscious decision, but I have not yet finished with these chords, and already have plans for some contrary motion and different inversions in my next piece!

Step 5 – The timbres.

As there were no resources for this project to employ real musicians, I was restricted to the sounds I could create myself and those available to me via my limited machines. I plumped for various guitar sounds, open and muted trumpets, glockenspiel and footsteps (mostly on the stone slabs at as-soon-as-it-opens Belsay Hall, away from traffic noise, wind and visitors’ exclamations).

The improvisatory guitar fragments of the nursery rhyme suggest a desolation which I feel suits the bleaker photos well, while the trumpets on my super-chords hint at a more sophisticated, jazz-inspired environment, perhaps. The glockenspiel is for the missing children, and the footsteps are for the missing and not-so-missing other people.

Step 5 – Spatial elements

Once the music was composed, I fitted it all together collage-like using Cubase so that I could make use of the ability to move from one speaker to the other to emulate walking, running, skipping through the pictures.

Step 6 – More structure

The climactic section of this music is during the scene outside Fenwick’s where people are heading in a variety of directions and the action is across the photo as opposed to coming towards or away. I have headed towards this music by gradually highlighting the beat, which has, at times been vague, but then at this point, splinters off into several different beats at the same time. More musical strands in general are happening during this section: the chords; the nursery rhyme; several different footsteps; the appearance of the glockenspiel; guitars; trumpets; panning from one speaker to the other.